Tonkotsu, Soho

With the colder weather setting it, there’s no better time to fill up on ramen. Who am I kidding, I eat ramen all year round but ya know, cold weather and a bowl of hot deliciousness just seems like a match made in heaven. Any excuse. Having been to Bone Daddies more times than I can recall, it was about time I branched out. To Tonkotsu! A similar style restaurant where queues can pile up and there’s a small but tempting menu.

We began our meal being rained on. Yep, being rained on, inside. Weird? Dangerous? Confusing? All of the above. But we were swiftly moved to a new table despite the growing queue of eager ramen eaters. Good luck to those we left behind with water dripping from the ceiling, plopping into their bowls. Upstairs was considerably drier, but service was slow. Very slow indeed. We had to call over the waiter to make any kind of headway with our meal whether it was ordering drinks or asking for the bill. But once ordered the food arrived quickly, so quickly in fact that we hadn’t even got our drinks…

And boy did we need those drinks as the ramen was a taste sensation but also a salt overload. So much so that I woke up in the night ready to drink a river. I went for the ‘Tonkotsu’ which was – rich, sea salt-based pork stock and thin noodles topped with slices of melt-in-the-mouth pork belly, half a seasoned soft-boiled egg, menma, bean sprouts and spring onions. So sure, given the description may be I should have expected to be rather thirsty after consuming a whole bowl of sea salt-based pork stock. Regardless I didn’t enjoy the effect the saltiness had after the meal but of course, as with most salt packed food, enjoyed it immensely whilst consuming. The pork was as described, melt in the mouth and the noodles still had a little bite without being under done. All in all, I would head back here again for more of this meaty ramen but would be more careful as to stock up on liquids afterwards. May be I’m just being precious so I would love to hear about your ramen experiences!